Origin DC Motor in LP12: Marketing or reality?


I have asked this before and gotten NO (zero, nada, zilch, bupkis, null...) response. From what I can tell, there is 10 times (100x?) the amount of promotional material as there is personal experience of this upgrade on the internet. I am starting to wonder if they have ever sold any.

My TT is a Linn LP12, with Linn Basik Plus arm and Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood MkII cartridge, and it is fitted with the Valhalla board. I have a great isolation stand that gives me incredibly musical and natural sound and I love this in my system. I do not want to screw up the sound, but I'm willing to try to improve it without spending big bucks. I can afford about $400-600 for a large upgrade at a time, once or twice a year.

Everyone I know who has added a motor drive (Lingo, Walker, Clearaudio, VPI) reports fantastic results, and I have heard it myself on many of those systems.

I have considered, on and off, trying to upgrade with the Origin Live DC Motor Drive, but I can only find about 2-3 professional reviews, and no individual (amateur) critiques, just comments from people who have read about but haven't actually installed one.

Have any of you actually tried this upgrade? Would I get a great improvement over the Valhalla board? How does it compare to a Lingo? What are the pros and the cons?

p.s. Does anyone else notice that there are certain products that are very heavily promoted in this and other sites (classified and dealer), but rarely see comments about someone who bought the product?
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Showing 1 response by pclt

I've got the original OL DC motor on my LP12. Blew away the stock basic motor it replaced and is better than my memory of a Valhalla motored LP12 I used to own.

I disagree with Linnlp12's posting above. I am quite certain I heard a significantly better sound with OL motor in combination with a Grace 707 arm than with a Valhalla motor with the significantly better Fidelity Research FR64 arm. Plus I have never heard suspension tuning improvements to match those wrought by any of my motor upgrades.

The new OL motor addresses my one issue with my motor; it's too noisy. Nothing comes through the speakers, but the physical noise generated by the motor's brushes are audible across the room in quiet pieces of music. The new OL motor has rubber shrink-wrap damping to address this. I'm thinking about wrapping my motor in BluTack.

All-in-all, the OL motor is great value for money. Some rough edges in implementation, but what comes out of the speakers is many times what you could reasonably expect from any product at that price point.

Have never compared directly with Armageddon or Lingo, but these are out of my price range. OL was affordable.

I was impressed with the increased soundstaging, tonal neutrality and detail. Did not notice any loss of the Linn's toe-tapping PRAT qualities. Strongly recommended.